Bears 2024: 5.0 It's Caleb Williams time

[Dresden]

"What was the thought process behind drafting the first punter off the board?

"I didn't expect him to get much further," Poles said on "The Pat McAfee Show." "Definitely didn't think I would be able to pick him up when we got to the fifth round. Really, the thought process there is to make anyone we're playing really uncomfortable.

"I didn't play much in the NFL but I know running onto the field and having the ball spotted on the 10-yard line is a very uncomfortable feeling. It's very disheartening at times. And I love taking advantage of field position. And really, that should help us with points, as well."

[biggestbullsfan]

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I hate this for Justin and the narrative it’ll create around him. It’s just disrespectful imo.

[biggestbullsfan]

Fine, but you (collectively) aren’t including some $45-50 million in cap in that victory lap. The vets are not part of the draft. Instead of picking players, you decided to spend a ton of money on good players.

The Poles hype cycle reminds me a lot of the AKME hype cycle after one year.

That said, I'm incredibly excited about where the Bears are, even if we mostly backed into that position through dumb luck.

Doug I’m a big fan and followed the Bulls Beat for years. But i swear you are such a wet blanket sometimes

[ThisGuyFawkes]

Fine, but you (collectively) aren’t including some $45-50 million in cap in that victory lap. The vets are not part of the draft. Instead of picking players, you decided to spend a ton of money on good players.

The Poles hype cycle reminds me a lot of the AKME hype cycle after one year.

That said, I'm incredibly excited about where the Bears are, even if we mostly backed into that position through dumb luck.

Doug I’m a big fan and followed the Bulls Beat for years. But i swear you are such a wet blanket sometimes

You can definitely tell he's been burned too many times (as we all have) haha.

[fleet]

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I don’t know what they have on the team other than Russell Wilson, but that’s not a great indication of his future as a quarterback combined with his option not being picked up. Perhaps a Taysom Hill situation is in his future unless this takes a fairly dramatic turn.

[biggestbullsfan]

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I don’t know what they have on the team other than Russell Wilson, but that’s not a great indication of his future as a quarterback combined with his option not being picked up. Perhaps a Taysom Hill situation is in his future unless this takes a fairly dramatic turn.

This bothers me. They haven’t even reached training camp and they’re suggesting using him for special teams. It’s rude af. I hate this for him.

[jnrjr79]

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I don’t know what they have on the team other than Russell Wilson, but that’s not a great indication of his future as a quarterback combined with his option not being picked up. Perhaps a Taysom Hill situation is in his future unless this takes a fairly dramatic turn.

This bothers me. They haven’t even reached training camp and they’re suggesting using him for special teams. It’s rude af. I hate this for him.

Justin Fields doesn't deserve anything beyond being used in the best way for the Steelers to win football games. If they recognize that he's one of the biggest weapons on his feet in football and that this is a way to deploy him that helps him win games, he should not be offended at the notion.

[dougthonus]

Doug I’m a big fan and followed the Bulls Beat for years. But i swear you are such a wet blanket sometimes

I'm definitely not a hype machine that is for sure.

[Michael Jackson]

I don’t know what they have on the team other than Russell Wilson, but that’s not a great indication of his future as a quarterback combined with his option not being picked up. Perhaps a Taysom Hill situation is in his future unless this takes a fairly dramatic turn.

This bothers me. They haven’t even reached training camp and they’re suggesting using him for special teams. It’s rude af. I hate this for him.

Justin Fields doesn't deserve anything beyond being used in the best way for the Steelers to win football games. If they recognize that he's one of the biggest weapons on his feet in football and that this is a way to deploy him that helps him win games, he should not be offended at the notion.

Agreed. That being said that wasn't some official announcement it was just some interview banter. Hell he could be a great return guy though, if he isn't doing anything else sitting behind Wilson... Why not?

[Michael Jackson]

Doug I’m a big fan and followed the Bulls Beat for years. But i swear you are such a wet blanket sometimes

I'm definitely not a hype machine that is for sure.

Just a realist... I wouldn't say wet blanket just someone who has seen how this story plays out and looks at it that way.

[dougthonus]

Just a realist... I wouldn't say wet blanket just someone who has seen how this story plays out and looks at it that way.

My personal take on myself is that my view is very fact based and very dry. I do get on some occasional Bulls rants, but largely because I think the facts support AKME as one of the bottom few front offices in the NBA.

[TheJordanRule]

https://www.thehogsty.com/2020/04/23/the-odds-of-success-for-a-draft-pick-part-4/

This person did this exercise that many are talking about. His findings on whether a pick was 'successful' (4 years of starting in the NFL, which I think is a fair bar)

Success rate by round:
1st round: 70%
2nd round: 49%
3rd round: 29.19%
4th round: 20.30%
5th round: 14.42%
6th round: 8.84%
7th round: 6.40%

To me, 4th round and beyond is pretty silly to expect much. a 1 in 5 chance means in every draft there are 6 quality starters drafted in 32 picks. Everything thinks their team will be one of the 6, but in reality the opposite is true.

Also for the scouts who were let go, it’s good to note that scouts earn their money by helping the team hit on talent from rounds 5-7…

We haven’t had success in those rounds which is why those scouts were let go, and some of them were before Poles got here. Poles is likely bringing in more of “his guys”

Exactly, Hold That and CBE. After the first two rounds, the odds of acquiring a quality player from the draft go from pretty bad to much worse, which is why draft picks from round 3 and lower are often overvalued. The Keenan Allen trade demonstrates Poles' ability to correctly value draft picks for what they're worth and, more importantly, demonstrates his much larger vision. Two quick points: 1. The odds that a fourth round pick would ever be able to start, much less perform at Keenan Allen's all pro level are slim. 2. Signing Keenan Allen was about pushing us into the championship window as fast as possible. Final point: the strength of a GM's vision, and the executability of that vision, is what ultimately makes or breaks him/her. They are like QBs throwing passes, anticipating where the receiver is going to be, rather than where the receiver currently is. At the end of this season, we had every reason to expect this team to be one that barely bounces in or barely bounces out of playoff contention moving forward. After all, a team's progression towards contention within the NFL is often incredibly slow, and we were only a 7 win team last year. Poles' vision didn't settle for that. We now have two, maybe three WRs who could all be legit #1s to play with. An explosive RB who can catch. A good QB who thinks like a QB, which is something we haven't had since Jay (Cutler). We'll be an 11+ win team, and that's gonna be largely on the strength of Poles' vision and the executability of his plan.

[TheJordanRule]

Dres and you have demonstrated just how high the media is on our team due to all of our moves... which solidifies the fact that our optimism about this upcoming season is the opposite of blind, which is a refreshing change from what it usually is.

Almost would be shocked if the NFL didn't force us to finally participate in Hard Knocks... and I'm here for it even if the organization isn't.

I hope not. At least not year one.

What are you talking about? We never get the exposure, and finally, after freakin decades, the time is now!

[Almost Retired]

https://www.sportsmockery.com/chicago-bears/ex-bears-scout-with-deep-kansas-ties-cant-believe-they-got-austin-booker/

[Michael Jackson]

Almost would be shocked if the NFL didn't force us to finally participate in Hard Knocks... and I'm here for it even if the organization isn't.

I hope not. At least not year one.

What are you talking about? We never get the exposure, and finally, after freakin decades, the time is now!

Lot's of changes and it kinda ruins a locker room and I don't want that for year one with Caleb let the team get settled. He will still be intriguing, and honestly just him being here is bringing more than enough media attention this year as is.

[Dresden]

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I hate this for Justin and the narrative it’ll create around him. It’s just disrespectful imo.

Hey, it's a job. Do whatever you can to stay in the league.

[Dresden]

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I don’t know what they have on the team other than Russell Wilson, but that’s not a great indication of his future as a quarterback combined with his option not being picked up. Perhaps a Taysom Hill situation is in his future unless this takes a fairly dramatic turn.

This bothers me. They haven’t even reached training camp and they’re suggesting using him for special teams. It’s rude af. I hate this for him.

is it worse than getting traded for a 6th round draft pick?

[ThisGuyFawkes]

I don’t know what they have on the team other than Russell Wilson, but that’s not a great indication of his future as a quarterback combined with his option not being picked up. Perhaps a Taysom Hill situation is in his future unless this takes a fairly dramatic turn.

This bothers me. They haven’t even reached training camp and they’re suggesting using him for special teams. It’s rude af. I hate this for him.

is it worse than getting traded for a 6th round draft pick?

He'll get another contract with someone after this season. He's better than 90% of backups in the NFL. It just may be less than his 5th year option would have been.

[DropStep]

You're correct that draft picks are not money, but they do have monetary value. You have to pay a guy you draft this year versus trading it for a pick next year and avoiding that cost. If you draft a player and he helps wins games, then you may see more ticket/concessions revenue. You can buy a pick in the NBA draft with cash.

If someone did enough research, they could certainly create a discount rate for draft picks. It wouldn't surprise me if someone already has, and it happens to be a pick that's a round earlier next season.

There are a few problems with that:

1: Winning has a very low correlation to money in the NFL relative to other leagues because 100% of TV money is nationalized an all games effectively all over the league sell out.

2: To the extent that is true that there is a correlation monetarily, the value of winning now vs winning in the future is unchanged and the value of winning in the future will already be worth more money due to the league being worth more money and the discount rate of cash already being applied, so to say it gives you more money by giving you cash earlier, is ignoring that it would already give you much more cash later, so you are double counting.

3: Given the league is actually growing at a much faster rate than the US economy and the cash discount rate, the value of money it would generate in the future is actually much greater than generating it earlier and investing it in the general market. Of course, there's no reason we need to believe that the future NFL growth rate will remain the same, but projecting that is of course a whole other debate.

The majority of the reason why earlier draft picks have more value today than later draft picks is due to the value to the decision makers and the disconnect between that and the value to the franchise. That's obviously not always true, like if you are contending for a superbowl today, juicing your team for this year may have additional true value at the cost of being worse in the future when you aren't contending for the superbowl, but most people making these decisions aren't in that situation.

Bill Barnwell wrote recently about the wisdom of trading up with some degree of nerditry, and came to some of the same conclusions. He threw up his hands and used 10% as a yearly discount value as a concession to the real world, but was dead set against trading next year's round x pick for this year's pick one round lower:

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/40052203/should-teams-trade-nfl-draft-lessons-deals-2024-class-winners-losers

"How should we value future picks? The common trope is to suggest devaluing future picks by one round per year, although I'm not sure that plays out as often in practice as is suggested. (Nobody was offering teams a 2026 first-round pick for their third-rounder last weekend.) From a team perspective, there's no reason current picks should be worth more than future selections; the focus on present value is a product of impatience by general managers who have their jobs riding on the line. I'll touch more on how badly it can go for teams that overvalue present picks at the expense of future selections later in this column... ...Don't sacrifice future picks for lesser picks in the current year's draft. If there's any rule an executive should take away from this article, it's this one. Teams can incur the moral hazard of general managers and front office people making decisions that increase their chances of holding on to their jobs at the expense of the organization's long-term viability."

Some conclusions (paraphrased) - people aren't very good at drafting, so go for volume. Trade down in the early and middle parts of the draft. Your team thinks they know who they want higher up the board, but they are likely wrong. QBs are really the only thing worth trading up for, with some occasional exceptions for WR, OT or Edge. You'll have to overpay if you trade up, but don't go on tilt like too many do. If you do trade up, you better be certain - and when you think you're certain, you probably aren't. Overall you're probably better off to just not.

Also interesting - the team that gained the most in player value in pick-for-pick deals during the period he used for mining data (2011-2019) was... your Chicago Bears, due in large part to Alshon and Eddie Jackson (Trubisky notwithstanding). But that was over three GMs' tenure, so it wasn't like there was a single wizard you could say did it well, and Justin Fields fell just outside the period in question.

[DuckIII]

I don’t know what they have on the team other than Russell Wilson, but that’s not a great indication of his future as a quarterback combined with his option not being picked up. Perhaps a Taysom Hill situation is in his future unless this takes a fairly dramatic turn.

This bothers me. They haven’t even reached training camp and they’re suggesting using him for special teams. It’s rude af. I hate this for him.

is it worse than getting traded for a 6th round draft pick?

Um, absolutely? They traded him for that so he could land in a place where he would have a chance to still be a starting QB. They did him a widely acknowledged favor. It wasn’t an insult.

A young QB on his rookie deal being asked (if he is actually asked which I doubt will happen) to return kicks, on the other hand, would sting pretty bad.

I get all the “just be happy to be in the NFL” stuff but come on. He’s not at that stage in his career yet. Indeed, I think there’s a better than 50/50 shot he still ends up a solid NFL starter. About the only guy who got crapped on worse by his franchise was Mac Jones.

Fields may end up a bum. But the notion that he should just be happy to have a uniform is kinda ridiculous at this point.